


Broken Trinkets

by flibbertygigget



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Broken Friendships, Gen, Light Angst, POV Narcissa Black Malfoy, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 09:36:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16679119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: It had taken longer than Narcissa would have liked to convince her lawyer that she had a witness in newly minted war hero Severus Snape. Thompson had been reluctant, but she had a long history with Snape, and Narcissa knew that she would be able to convince him to intercede on her behalf.





	Broken Trinkets

Her husband had been dragged kicking and screaming into custody, earning himself an additional charge of resisting arrest. Though it had always been doubtful that he would be let go with only a slap on the wrist like last time, he certainly had done himself no favors.

Narcissa Black Malfoy had just finished the last of her letters when there was another knock at the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Ministry Aurors. Open up; we have a warrant.” She neatly tied the bundle to the owl and sent it off before smoothing down her robes and doing as they ordered.

“Gentlemen,” she said.

“Narcissa Malfoy, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting known Death Eaters.” She tilted her chin upward, calm on her face and steel in her spine.

“Very well,” she said. You could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, after all.

* * *

It had taken longer than she would have liked to convince her lawyer that she had a witness in newly minted war hero Severus Snape. Thompson had been reluctant; after all, since the war Snape had become notoriously reclusive, refusing to testify in court except through a Pensieve and avoiding every attempt at an interview. But the Malfoys had a long history with Snape, and Narcissa knew that she would be able to convince him to be a witness on her behalf.

The meeting was to take place at the Ministry, in a bland little room that nonetheless had a fireplace that would allow Snape to come and go without attracting any kind of attention. Narcissa’s lawyer was there, of course, along with Auror to ensure that she would not attempt to make a break for the unsecured Floo Network.

Snape came in a burst of green flames at the precise time of the meeting. Narcissa studied him. He looked… fine, better than the last time she had seen him, in the darkness of that blasted forest before the battle. She knew that he had been attacked by Nagini, but she was still surprised at just how _much_ of a scar there was. The snake had struck his left side, leaving long strips of scar tissue almost ringing his neck, gouging from the base of his collarbone halfway up his face.

Still, he seemed steadier, more solid that the wraith-like being she remembered. Funny, she couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t been unhealthily thin; she had taken it to be his natural state. Obviously, she had been mistaken. Perhaps it was just his hair. He looked younger with it pulled back like that.

“Narcissa,” he said, his voice a ragged octave below what it had been before. “Why did you want to see me?”

“Severus,” she said. All of her carefully prepared arguments seemed to have left her. She was terrifyingly aware of Thompson and the Auror behind her, almost breathing down her neck. “Severus, you have to help me. I’m being held for nothing, you know that. If you could be a witness, _my_ witness-“

“No,” he said. He looked over at her lawyer. “Can we be done here?” Thompson nodded wearily.

“My apologies, sir. I tried to warn her that you weren’t getting involved beyond the necessary, but…” He shrugged. “Again, I’m terribly sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Snape said. “I helped her as part of my cover before. She has her reasons for thinking that I would do so again.” He stood, and Narcissa felt sick.

“Severus, _please_ -“ Snape’s jaw clamped shut, and Narcissa couldn’t help the fear wriggling in the pit of her stomach.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he said, his voice dark. “I did what I could for you and your family, and now you are all alive when so many are dead. I will send what I witnessed to the Wizengamot, just as I always do. You’ll be surprised at the people they let off with nothing more than a fine these days.”

“And Draco?”

“What about him?”

“Do you plan on abandoning him too? He’s just a child!” There was no hint of sympathy in Snape’s dark eyes.

“There were too many children involved in this war,” he said quietly. Narcissa desperately wanted to argue further, but Snape had already taken a pinch of Floo Powder and disappeared. She glanced desperately back at her lawyer and the Auror. The Auror shrugged.

“Wouldn’t have expected anything else from Snape, ma’am,” he said.

* * *

They told her that she should consider herself lucky. The Dementors no longer guarded Azkaban, and she had the possibility of parole after five years. She was certainly luckier than Lucius, who had been given forty years without the possibility of parole and had some people clamoring for more due to the incident with Dark Lord’s diary back in ’92. The fact that she was told all this by a rather tough-looking prison guard who had apparently only narrowly escaped the Dementor’s Kiss in August was less than reassuring.

She had no way of knowing what was going on. She had no way of finding out where her son’s trial was going, if he had been arrested or managed to escape the carnage. She had no way of knowing what awaited her when she was led into the tiny visiting room, so she was understandably surprised when Severus Snape, of all people, was sitting in the other chair.

“Severus,” she said. The woman guarding him scowled.

“Have some damn respect,” she growled.

“There’s no need,” Snape said. His voice was slightly better this time, but perhaps that was simply because he seemed to be making an effort to keep his voice low and steady. “Mrs. Malfoy and I are acquainted.” The guard snorted, but she didn’t say anything more.

“Why are you here, Severus?” Narcissa said, ignoring the guard’s poisonous glare. “I thought you had abandoned me entirely.”

“You reap what you sow, Narcissa,” Snape said without a hint of remorse in his voice.

“Only one person in this room bears the Dark Mark, and it isn’t me.”

“No, it isn’t,” Snape acknowledged. “You don’t have to tell me that I have blood on my hands. But that isn’t the reason why I’m here.”

“Then why? To gloat?”

“No.” Snape brought a _Daily Prophet_ from the depths of his cloak. Narcissa felt her heart speed up as he handed it over to her, but not even her frantic scans could find any hint of emotion, not even in his dark eyes. She looked down at the paper and gasped. There was her son, her Draco, moving in black and white on the thin page.

“Draco…” She ran her hand gently over the picture, half hoping that some of the ink would rub off onto her fingertips. She looked up at Snape, who was as stiff and emotionless as ever.

“Read it,” he said. She obeyed without question, feeling her heart lifting with every word. It wasn’t perfect, but at least her son would be put on probation instead of thrown in Azkaban alongside his parents. That was one indignity to which he would never be subjected.

“Thank you,” she said. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. “Thank you so much.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” he said harshly. “I gave them the memories I had and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. I certainly didn’t recommend any clemency for the boy.”

“All the same, you didn’t have to bring this to me,” Narcissa said. Snape grimaced. “If there’s anything I can do-“

“Nothing. There’s nothing.” He stood. There was nothing in Snape’s body that suggested their former association, the closest to friendship that a Black and a Malfoy could get, and Narcissa felt an inexplicable pang of loss. “Just make sure that you and your family stay out of my life from now on.”


End file.
